Landing After Dark in Salem By Jeff Orchard

Harriett and her husband were students at the gliderport who had initially met in physical therapy. They were both adventurous types who had injuries that required months of rehabilitation. Bob had hurt his back in a construction accident and Harriett had knee injuries from a car accident. They were both still very active, doing many things together, including learning to fly. They progressed quickly, and one day decided that they enjoyed flying enough that they wanted to buy a 2 place glider. Harriett picked out a brand new Schweizer 2-33 with a color scheme of a bright orange fuselage with very yellow wings. She affectionately called it Pumpkin when she saw the picture that Schweizer sent after it was painted. She was interested in flying it back from Elmira, so we made arrangements to pick it up there and tow it home with one of the Bird Dogs. I was going to sit in the back of the glider and provide moral support and relief for Harriett as she acted as pilot in command.

Richard, our tow pilot, was a captain for one of the now-defunct airlines that used to serve the east coast. We all met early one morning on a beautiful crisp clear early fall day, primed for the 3 hour flight to Elmira to get the glider. Richard made a last call to check the weather and came out to tell us that he wanted to wait because there was fog reported at Albany. It being one of those picturesque New England mornings, where the clear air had allowed temperatures to fall to near or below the dew point, there was fog in a lot of valleys, even down the street from the gliderport. I asked Richard if we shouldn’t head out, expecting the fog to burn off as usual by the time we got to Albany. There were dozens of small airports on our route that we could stop and wait at if he didn’t feel comfortable flying over the fog-shrouded Hudson. At least we would be that much closer while we waited, and would not be burning up daylight early on. We had a limited amount of light on that fall day, sunset was about 7, and we calculated that we had to be off the ground in Elmira by 3 PM in order to get home to Salem by sunset.

Richard called the weather bureau every 20 minutes or so, and around 10, he reported that Albany was in the clear. I looked at my watch, mumbling something to myself about the fact that if we had left earlier, we would have crossed the Hudson shortly after the fog had lifted, and we would have been 130 miles and an hour and 20 minutes closer to Elmira, getting us there almost on schedule.

The Bird Dog we flew had 3 seats in tandem. Richard was pilot, Harriett was a little heavier than me, so I climbed way into the back of the plane and settled in. She was between us, in the middle seat, and was like a little kid pasted to the window on her first flight in a Bird Dog. As we headed west , I noticed that some of the deeper river and stream valleys even close to home had white yarn- like fog threading between the hills. I was hoping that Richard didn’t get too nervous, and turn around because of the “random undercast”. His nerves must have been steeled by the favorable forecast, because we pressed on. The drone of the Bird Dog engine finally got the best of me, and I nodded off kind of scrunched into the back of the plane, with the coiled tow rope as a pillow.

I was awakened by Harriett shaking my knee. She was craned around in her seat and when I opened my eyes she said “He’s lost.” I said, “You have GOT to be kidding...this guy is an airline captain. He flies this route all the time.” She said he had already turned in two complete circles , and sure enough, when I looked up, he had a finger on the map, with the stick between his knees, peering off in the distance. I yelled up asking if he was lost. When he finally admitted he was, I asked for the map and he reluctantly handed it over. After a few moments to orient myself, I could see the Adirondacks off to my right, and there was a town with roads and railroad tracks next to a river right under us. After a moment or two, I tapped Richard on his shoulder, and told him to follow the railroad tracks, we were about 60 miles from Elmira, and the tracks eventually went right past the Schweizer factory. He gave me one of those looks that said I know you are wrong, but if you insist....

About 40 minutes later we were lined up on final at Elmira, Harriet gave me a wink, and I vowed to myself not to rub it in too deep, we can all get turned around every now and then. It was approaching 2 PM as we taxied to the factory side of the airport and parked right next to the world famous Schweizer Soaring School. I went in and asked Bernie Caras if he could call Tony Doherty and let him know we had arrived to get the glider. Harriet had already located “Pumpkin” tied down near the fence and was oooh-ing and aaaaah-ing over it as Tony greeted her with paperwork to sign. I mentioned to Richard, that since it was getting late we should make it a fairly fast turn around and get on the way home. He insisted that we at least get some lunch and he wanted to call to check the weather for the trip home. I was secretly praying that the dew point was lower as he dialed the phone. We grabbed a sandwich and got back to the runway right about 3 PM. So far- so good, a little late, but we should be fine. Harriett and I got the glider to the take off area, laid out the rope, and wired a screen door spring to the stick which would help hold the stick forward during the long trip home. Schweizer 2-33’s are notorious for not having enough forward trim, so a long aero-tow is mostly learning how to hold forward pressure to keep the nose from climbing at the same time you are trying to stay behind the towplane. If you needed more forward trim, you simply took another wrap with the screen door spring. It actually worked quite well, I had done several long tows in 2-33’s to and from Elmira using the same technique...at least after the first long trip where I had no help at all.

Harriet climbed into the front seat and was getting settled, Richard and I were discussing last minute details. He said it looked like we were going to be OK for daylight....I looked at my watch and agreed, if we left right then. We had no radios, so Richard suggested that if we did get back home after dark, he would fly to Lawrence and we could land on a lighted runway. Thankfully, in those days, Lawrence did not have a tower, and it was not very busy, especially at night. Even so, I was not all that anxious to be plowing around after dark with no radio and no lights on the glider, so I again pressed for an immediate departure. Richard said he was going to make one last call to weather, I rolled my eyes, but kept my mouth shut. After he was gone for about 20 minutes, I got out of the glider and went looking for him. He was chatting with one of his airline buddies that happened to live nearby about the local real estate market. “Richard!....Lets get going, come on!” He headed for the phone to call weather. I grabbed his arm and mentioned it was going to be close enough as it was, the weather was clear, and when we got to 6,000 feet he could see for himself it was clear all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. We took off at 3:45, climbed to 5,500 feet and settled into a 70 mph tow. I did a quick mental calculation, I didn’t need the map to tell me that at 70 mph, 300 miles was going to take 4 hours and 15 minutes to cover, getting us home about 8 PM. About an hour after sunset.

As we flew east, the sun was behind us getting lower and lower in the sky. We crept past the Adirondacks on the left, the buildings of Albany beginning to show up in the valley ahead. As we crossed the Hudson River, I wondered how much faster the sun was going to apparently go down at the speed we were traveling eastward, and I wondered where our sunset was going to be. On the ground, lights were beginning to wink on here and there, but we were still high enough to be in sunlight. I watched Mount Monadnock off to our left as the sun sank out of sight behind us. The towplane had its running lights on, and I was able to pick out individual cities as we passed over them....Springfield, Keene way off to the left, Worcester just ahead to the right. Finally I could see the string of city lights that were Manchester NH, Nashua NH and Lowell Mass, and off to the right I could see Boston. We were still on course for Salem, when the towplane made a right turn and headed directly at Boston. I thought maybe we were going to come around to Lawrence as our plan had dictated, after all, there was a little light along the western horizon, but by most definitions, it was night. I could see the Lawrence Airport beacon pretty far to the left, and we still were headed to Boston. I was beginning to think that Richard was heading for the biggest bunch of lights around thinking it was Lawrence. I will say in his defense, that the sky was so clear that you could see for miles and distances were difficult to gauge. I knew it was Boston we were headed for though, because I could see the black expanse of ocean beyond the lights.

We had been steadily climbing very slowly since Albany, and now we were at about 9,000 feet over Dracut Massachusetts, heading straight south. I flew the glider way to the right to get the towplane to turn left, but Richard was resisting the turn. I finally went so far to the right that the towplane had no choice but to turn left, and when he was headed back toward Lawrence, I got in behind again. Harriet was wondering what we were going to do, and I showed her the green and white blink on the horizon that was the beacon at Lawrence. I asked her to keep an eye on it as I looked around. Getting my bearings, I could see the lights of Route 28 ahead of us and the big yellow sign of the Atomic Pizza Shop just opposite Rockingham Park. A string of car headlights on Route 38 led right to the street light at the corner of Brady Avenue, and from there I could see the yard light at Turners Dairy with a milk truck parked under it. As we got closer I realized that I could see where the runway was, because there was a large black spot below us to the east of Turners Dairy yard light. Like the horse headed for the barn, I pulled the release, banked off to the right into a steep turn and opened the spoilers. As we stayed in a medium turn losing altitude I asked Harriett if she could see the altimeter. Without any reference to objects on the ground I was having a little difficulty guessing altitude. She said she thought it said 4800 feet when an eerie glow surrounded the instrument panel and she was able to confirm it. We continued our descent, I was circling down a half mile off the end of the runway and every so often during our turn, the inside of the glider got brighter. I was trying to remember the phase of the moon to figure out where the light was coming from, but was too busy to spend a lot of time with it. I showed Harriett what my plan was and where the gliderport was and how I was going to make a long shallow approach and settle onto the runway in a normal glide. There was a little light, and you could see shadows, and I did know the area well enough that I knew we would make it. I was looking for the lights on the building, sure that someone would be there waiting for us, when I saw a pair of headlights aimed right at us from the ground from what looked like the near end of the runway.

As we drive our cars on the road at night, especially on a long straight stretch, subconsciously we get distance information from the distance between headlights and taillights. Sometimes we are fooled a little by a bus or a Volkswagen Bug because the lights are not the “normal” distance apart, but eventually as we get closer and see the type of vehicle it is, we adjust our viewpoint and pass safely. Two motorcycles can really mess you up if they are riding side by side, especially if they are not staying the same distance apart, or switch from high to low beam separately. To make a long story just a little longer, I automatically had assumed that some nice soul had driven his car to the end of the runway to act as approach lights. I set my glide up using the size of the lights I was looking at and how far apart they were, and figured I was probably going to be about 100 feet over them as I came over the fence.

What I never figured on was that it would be the bright yellow International tractor that we used to mow the runway and haul gliders back in with that was sitting at the end of the runway........ the one with the 3 1/2 inch diameter headlights set 2 feet apart. I still have a clear image of Jerry jumping off the tractor and running into the shadows as we passed over it at about 20 feet. Once I adjusted to the sudden change in apparent altitude, I got it down in pretty good shape, in fact I was able to taxi almost to the tiedown in the light.....in the illumination of the Bird Dog landing light. He had full flaps, and had followed us down to the runway by keeping us in his light. Richard was too high to make the field on that pass, but the next time around he was able to use the white approach lights and got down in grand style. Our turns made it difficult for him to stay aimed directly at us, but that was the source of the occasional panel illumination Harriett used to check the instruments as we descended.

Jerry came putting back in with the tractor and as we tied down, he said he had been just about ready to leave when he thought he heard the Bird Dog in the distance, and was certain it was us when he heard the engine cut. He knew we were not all that far away and were headed home. He got the tractor out and drove to the end of the runway about the same time I was showing Harriet the landmarks I was using. He said I did give him a little scare by coming over him so low.

Richard admitted to getting turned around again and actually thought he was headed to Lawrence when I pulled his tail around to aim him. He also said that the noise of us releasing when we did surprised him, and that he really didn’t have a clue where we were. Thinking that we might not know either, he decided that it was important for him to follow us down so he could report on where we ended up for the search party. Was he surprised when we ended up in Salem? Let’s just say we all were a little bit surprised.

The moral of this story? There are probably 40 of them in here, ranging from “Never trust an airline pilot in a small plane”, to “If you call for the weather under a dome of high pressure, 2 or 3 times is probably enough”, to “You can plan all you want, but unless you follow the plan, you will need a new plan”. Personally I like “Never fly a long tow at night without a radio”, but there are others hidden in there too.

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